Hi,

I'm a relatively new player, playing solo all the time, and am struggling a bit with a few of the rules in the first scenario of OHaUH (We Must Away, Ere Break of Day). Please can someone help...

1. How do the troll rules work? All three have a different bit of info on them ('cannot play attachment cards on Troll enemies' / 'Trolls not engaged cannot take damage' / 'Trolls can only be attacked by one character at a time'). Once all three are in the staging area, do all three of these rules apply at all times? Or only when engaged? And once one troll is killed, does his specific rule still apply to the other two now he's in the victory display, or is it then only the remaining ones rules that apply? Knowing the answer to this would help me decide which order to try and kill them in...

2. Stage 2B 'Roast Mutton' states to advance to the next stage if there are no encounter cards left or no trolls in play. But do I need to still get one single progress point on the card first? The number 1 implies I do, but the text stating that any time progress tokens would be placed there I should discard encounter cards instead confuses me. Does that rule only apply to any extra progress tokens beyond the first one? As I'm playing solo it can sometimes take me several turns just to get one progress token there as there's usually a build up of threat in the staging area at that point as I've been too busy dealing with trolls to cope with much questing!

3. Finally, the troll key. What do I do with it if it turns up when there are no trolls in the staging area,? The text on it doesn't seem clear to me - can I just add it to the staging area and then exhaust Bilbo to get hold of it, or does it go into the discard pile? The rules only seem to explain what to do if it's first attached to a troll.

Thanks in advance!

1. A card's rules are active whenever that card is in play. So if there is no caveat, the rules are in play whether it's in the staging area or engaged with you. But the victory display is not in play, so the rules aren't active when the card is in the victory display. Exceptions: i) some cards have text like "when xxx is engaged with a player,..." that are clearly only in effect when you're engaged with them; ii) some card abilities only make sense if the card is out of play, e.g. a card might have "Forced: if xxx is in the victory display at the start of the round, add it to the staging area"---abilities like this are in effect when the card is out of play (there's no specific indication of this, you just have to realise the rule makes no sense otherwise).

2. This is just an oversight on the card, it should probably list "-" as its quest points. In general, if an effect tells you to advance to another quest stage, you do that whether or not you have enough progress.

3. I think it sits in the staging area waiting for a Troll, but cannot be claimed until such a Troll arrives and is then damaged.

18 minutes ago, Henatron said:

1. How do the troll rules work? All three have a different bit of info on them ('cannot play attachment cards on Troll enemies' / 'Trolls not engaged cannot take damage' / 'Trolls can only be attacked by one character at a time'). Once all three are in the staging area, do all three of these rules apply at all times? Or only when engaged? And once one troll is killed, does his specific rule still apply to the other two now he's in the victory display, or is it then only the remaining ones rules that apply? Knowing the answer to this would help me decide which order to try and kill them in...

As long as a Troll is in play (the victory display is out of play) it's effect benefits all the Troll in play. To is definitely the first one to kill (even though it might take a while).

20 minutes ago, Henatron said:

2. Stage 2B 'Roast Mutton' states to advance to the next stage if there are no encounter cards left or no trolls in play. But do I need to still get one single progress point on the card first? The number 1 implies I do, but the text stating that any time progress tokens would be placed there I should discard encounter cards instead confuses me. Does that rule only apply to any extra progress tokens beyond the first one? As I'm playing solo it can sometimes take me several turns just to get one progress token there as there's usually a build up of threat in the staging area at that point as I've been too busy dealing with trolls to cope with much questing!

You advance as soon as you fulfill one of the two conditions (empty encounter deck or all Troll killed)

24 minutes ago, Henatron said:

Finally, the troll key. What do I do with it if it turns up when there are no trolls in the staging area,? The text on it doesn't seem clear to me - can I just add it to the staging area and then exhaust Bilbo to get hold of it, or does it go into the discard pile? The rules only seem to explain what to do if it's first attached to a troll.

I am not sure, but it's possible you have the pre-errata text of the card, this is the actual one

http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR/Details/Troll-Key-THOHaUH

2 hours ago, NathanH said:

3. I think it sits in the staging area waiting for a Troll, but cannot be claimed until such a Troll arrives and is then damaged.

Ok, thanks. So if it doesn't come out until the third stage when the trolls are gone then I guess I'm screwed as regards being able to get the treasure. Shame! Thanks for your replies to my questions - much appreciated.

2 hours ago, NathanH said:

2. This is just an oversight on the card, it should probably list "-" as its quest points. In general, if an effect tells you to advance to another quest stage, you do that whether or not you have enough progress.

I don't think it's as much an oversight, more an early attempt at templating quest cards. They switch back and forth in the early cycles between having 0 or 1 on quest cards with alternative win conditions and it doesn't look like they settled on "-" until the Against the Shadow cycle.

16 minutes ago, Henatron said:

Ok, thanks. So if it doesn't come out until the third stage when the trolls are gone then I guess I'm screwed as regards being able to get the treasure. Shame! Thanks for your replies to my questions - much appreciated.

Yes, this is one of the complaints with this quest, that it feels arbitrary whether the key (and purse) come out early or late in the game.

The only semi-consistent method I have found is to stall out the first stage until both objectives are in play before advancing. Side quests are ideal for this if you have them, but scrying the encounter deck can work as well. The quest does fight against this somewhat because there are a lot of cards which raise threat and it's not ideal being forced to engage the trolls in stage two all at once.